War and Peace

In war: resolution. In defeat: defiance. In victory: magnanimity. In peace: goodwill.

If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.

In defeat unbeatable: in victory unbearable. of Lord Montgomery

To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war.

Naval tradition?. Monstrous. Nothing but rum, sodomy, prayers, and the lash.

Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

We make this wide encircling movement in the Mediterranean, having for its primary object the recovery of the command of that vital sea, but also having for its object the exposure of the underbelly of the Axis, especially Italy, to heavy attack.

Give us the tools and we will finish the job.

When I warned them [the French Government] that Britain would fight on alone whatever they did, their generals told their Prime Minister and his divided Cabinet, ‘In three weeks England will have her neck wrung like a chicken.’ Some chicken! Some neck!

Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.

We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.

What is our aim? … Victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror; victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.

What is our policy? … to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime.

War settles nothing … to win a war is as disastrous as to lose one!

Strong gongs groaning as the guns boom far,

The cold queen of England is looking in the glass;

He rushed into the field, and, foremost fighting, fell.

Today we feel what Franklin Roosevelt called the warm courage of national unity. This unity against terror is now extending across the world.

This crusade, this war on terrorism is going to take a while.

We will make no distinction between terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbour them.

From this it is clear how much the pen is worse than the sword.

Man’s inhumanity to man

If there is ever another war in Europe, it will come out of some damned silly thing in the Balkans.

This policy cannot succeed through speeches, and shooting-matches, and songs; it can only be carried out through blood and iron.